


Fingertips.

by argenterie



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, Angst and Feels, Awkward Sexual Situations, F/M, H/R/Hr - Freeform, Heavy Angst, Implied Sexual Content, R/Hr/H, Sexual Content, Sexual Fantasy, Sexual Tension, Unresolved Sexual Tension, hr/h/r, r/h/hr
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-08
Updated: 2014-06-08
Packaged: 2018-02-03 22:51:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,303
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1758951
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/argenterie/pseuds/argenterie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hermione handles her feelings. Ron. And... Harry.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fingertips.

I sit in the dark, in the living room. This is our home, our happy married home. Ron and I, still together, as we have been meant to be, for all of our lives. And… This is happiness, isn’t it? Isn’t it? What is it?

\---

Harry just left, the three of us are heading to a party at Luna’s house later tonight. Harry made some gentle excuses and promises to be back to ride with us in a half hour.

The moment Harry walks out, Ron’s eyes turn to mine, he opens his arms, and I climb onto him, kissing him, kissing deeply. His arms around me both rough and gentle. I feel joy, I’m giggling, like a fucking schoolgirl, and he’s pulling off my pants, and roughly pushes my panties to the side and suddenly he’s inside me, rocking, and I’m feeling my body so intensely, the crash of feelings, this, which is all I’ve ever wanted, to be loved, to feel loved, and I’m so close at this point, and while he watches me, he puts my fingertips into his mouth, looking at me right in the eyes, and I am coming, I’m coming.

\---

Early at the party, the three of us arrive. Ron heads into the main area to mingle with our old friends from school, I can see him from the kitchen, where it’s still dark. And then I realize, that Harry and I are standing together, alone in Luna’s small kitchen, and he’s pouring shots of whiskey for the two of us.

 

And I say, “remember, the tent, that time in the woods? When we drank whiskey together...”

 

And he says, "That was exactly what I was thinking."

 

And we smile, and take the shots, in honor of that friendship, that moment, those nights, when Ron left me alone, and I was just alone, with Harry, so long ago. Before that night, with the four of us. Before that. In Winter. When he came to me. When Alive. Oh: The tent.

In my heart, that time has never gone. The past is never dead, is it? It’s never past.

Not even past.

Watching him at this party, I’m drinking, more than I should, I am sure. But being around Luna and her Ravenclaw friends, it’s just so anxiety-provoking. And I know I should look at Ron, for fuck’s sake, he’s my husband, my true love, my life, for my whole life, and yet, yet, yet, I am just watching Harry. I don’t know why. I don’t know. But that moment in the kitchen, when he remembered the same moment that I remembered, and somehow, that intensity means something to me, and I am just allowing it to be there, just letting myself feel these things.

But I’m so wrong, to let myself feel that.

Ron, he’s my life. My future, my past, my everything. Despite those moments where his personality becomes tense and strange and difficult, despite that… Ron. Oh, Ron, I love you so much.

And… Yet… And, yet.

Harry’s drinking and laughing with our friends, sitting in a chair facing me. I shouldn’t have worn such a short dress, but also I’m glad. I realize I’m older now than I used to be, and though I also realize that so much time has passed, since those nights, when he and I were alone together -- so long, since we were spending time the tent together, during the war -- I can’t help but watch him. He’s barely changed. He’s the same, isn’t he?

He’s just the same.

Time flows past, alcohol smoothing over my feelings until they are matted down, wet and compressed, and I am not paying attention to things the way I should. My brain is sweetly gentled in this moment, I am just smiling, thinking, thinking.

And... And. At the party. It's late, after midnight, maybe even close to 1 am. The party is winding down, and I am drinking, drunk maybe. There is laughter and music and joy all around us. So many people. It is a chaos of voices and happiness. In this instant I make a bad decision. And I turn to Harry. And because I’m insane, because I hate myself, and something about the moment, it feels just raw, and I ask him, a question, that I really don’t want to know the answer to, because it’s horrible, and yet, I ask it, I just look right into his eyes, and I ask him. I knew that Ginny was going on a trip, I'd heard she was cheating on her husband with someone, and I had a feeling, because of the foursome night, that perhaps, perhaps, it was Harry. But I pretended it wasn't true -- and so I ignored that feeling. But tonight -- I can't ignore it any longer. I didn’t want to know if he was the man going with her, because I did know, really; somehow, I already know it. But in this moment, I have to ask him, “are you the one going?”

And his face.... it just closes. His smile is gone. His face is flat and I am aching already. The dim lights, the window, the door to the balcony: these are what light us both. And so I see his face. I am so fucking alone, right now.

 

He says curtly, "we need to talk about this."

We step onto the darkened balcony, shutting the door behind us. I'm already close to breaking down. He can see my face, I know he can. Barely controlled affect. Essentially, it's silent out here.

He pauses. He watches my face.

I say: please tell me. Please.

Then it happens: He says the thing that I knew, but that I didn’t want to believe, and that I hoped wasn’t true. He stops short before actually saying it with his words, though. He is in love now, and it’s not with me, despite everything (and maybe even -because- of everything), because of Ron, but whatever, it’s fucking horrible. He says it to me, the words I hate to hear, but need to hear. He doesn’t say that he loves her, but I know... that he must.

I know it, I know, and it's like being stabbed in the chest. I feel gutted. My face must be white and aghast. I don't remember responding, exactly. I turn away. I face away from him, and now I am staring off the edge of the balcony, holding the banister in my fists, clenching my fingers deeply into the scarred wood, and I am looking out at the trees and the clouds, and looking off into the night sky, which has always been a comfort to me, and then I just lose it completely, and I can’t stop myself, it’s not just booze, it’s something else, too. And I start to sob, just wrenching. I'm covering my face with my hands. I press my forehead into the banister and feel the splinters push into my skin. I am weeping, and this is awful, because I am so alone.

Then, all at once, he's there, behind me, watching, and suddenly I feel his arms around me from behind me, his soft voice, "shh..." and him rubbing my sides and my arms with his hands; just touching me, soothing me. I am still crying, I pull outside of my body and I can hear my own desperate sobs, so bitter and so completely agonizing, I am trying to stop it, I am trying, oh, god, but it is beyond me. This is pain like being tortured. It is worse than almost anything I have felt, in my life. It's like a razor carving my skin, again, again. I feel him pull me in, now, and so I press my face, still covered with my hands, into his chest; and I am just crying, crying. It's the worst pain. I am dying, maybe. Dying. And so embarrassed, and yet underneath that, strangely, I am also glad, because he SHOULD see this pain, he should see it, he needs to know it.

(He has to have already known. Those nights, in the tent, and what I said to him, when Ron was gone; in December. In Winter. Those nights when he and I were alone, and my honesty was just leaking out. Those nights in the fucking tent. He knows, already, he does.)

The tears wind down. And I eventually stop. He lets me finish crying into his sweater, into his chest. And then he lets me go. He's facing me, it's so dark, but I can see his eyes. His hair is all tumbled in his face. His green eyes, low, watching me. The scar on his forehead still there, as always. His face is tightly controlled. He asks, "What hurts you more, that we didn’t tell you about us; or is it worse, that it’s me? That I’m the man who’s going..? That I'm the one going with her?" And he asks it firmly, quietly.

 

I can't answer at first. There are still moments I feel my face crumpling and I have to hide my eyes, or my mouth, with my hands. I have my hands pressed so hard to my face, and I can't look at him; I stare all around blindly, trying to get control of myself. I’m rubbing my fingertips together furiously, feeling the skin of my fingers slide past itself, focusing on that sensation, trying desperately to be mindful, trying to regain control over this situation, because I am terrified, I am so fucking scared he will look at me, and he'll see my pain and then just walk away, leaving me to this moment of agony all alone.

I tell the truth, then. I decide. I decide, I can't resist, I need to say something real to him, something true.

 

So, I say, "I can't say this. I can't say more. But it is both. It's that it's happening... and it's also, that it's you."

His mouth tightens visibly. His face is still so closed, and yet, I can see his eyes starting to glisten, and this is truly surprising; it is something I never would have expected from him. To see my pain, and to weep with me.

I say: "Because. Oh, Harry. Because. You have to know, you must know. Don't you know? You know. I... I. I just.. I..."

My heart is crushed and beating a million times a minute, like a bird caught in my chest. And I can't finish the sentence. The heart, it’s so alone. And I am thinking, this was such a mistake. Ron is inside, laughing with our friends, laughing with Luna and the others, while I am out here, with my heart ripped out, on the balcony.

Harry gestures, making an opening movement with his hands, quiet. And then he waits in the silent night for me to continue. I very slowly admit to him, some things. That I am sad because Ginny was my friend, and I am left out; and I am sad that she and I had a connection and that now that friendship is over.

He then says a strange thing, says it a lot of times: "It's okay if not everyone in the world likes you. It is okay if they don't like you." He says it again, but I can’t understand what it means, in this moment, I am just lost in myself. So I ramble, on and on, for a long while, and every once in a while, I again cover my mouth with my hands, to keep the tears from crashing back into the night.

He says very little at this point, he's just watching me, essentially, just observing my suffering, and he's standing there quietly and watching, and listening. I say haltingly... that he must know how I feel about him, that I am scared, and hate myself, but there it is, it's there, I can't help my feelings. I talk about the tent. The nights in the war. When I realized that when things get hard for me, I have the urge to cut and run, I want to tear away and be alone, escaping, escaping.

And then I tell him, "maybe you're the escape this time."

He asks, "what are you trying to run from? Is it from me?" And I whisper, "no. It's not from you. It's from Ron."

And he asks, later, "Am I only an escape?"

And I realize that he was hurt when I said that, and I immediately respond, "No, no, you are so much more than just an escape for me. You mean so much more."

And I ask.. "Am I deluded? Is this real? What is it?"

And he responds.. "You're ... Not deluded."

The flow, of talking, and then I talk about how in the fall I wasn't sure what was happening to my marriage with Ron, and what would be next. And how now it's better between Ron and me, but I am still hurt, because I just have feelings, I don't know. I don't know. And I'm crying a little bit every few sentences, and then gathering myself, and saying over and over, "I am so sorry, I am horrified, this is maybe the worst thing, the worst." And I am often turning away, and wiping my face.

Again now, I stare out over the balcony and grit my nails into the wood, feeling the wood splinter beneath my fingertips, feeling splinters of the railing grind into my nailbeds. I look down and realize I’m actually bleeding from two of my fingertips, and that sharp and sweet pain is what centers me back into this moment. My fingertips, always so exquisitely sensitive. Ron knows it. And Harry knows it, too. I know that he knows how my fingertips are.

And as one single drop of blood runs from beneath my right index fingernail, I remember suddenly one beautiful horrible moment where Harry drew that same fingertip into his mouth, and gently bit it, and how in that moment, so long ago, I nearly came just from that, just from that. I remember it, and the nights in the tent (in December), and how intimate, and how frightening, and how much I just wanted to be with him, instead of with who I must be with.

And, watching the blood run from my fingertip, I finally turn back to him. And there's silence.

 

So I say, "so… what do you have to say…"

He is still standing there, and strangely it's suddenly raining now, so we move; we stand facing one another under the awning by the window, as it rains, and I say, "of course, sympathetic nature..." and we laugh a bit.

 

He says, "I can't believe you want me to say it." And, he says, "I've told you how I feel about you, a few times.”

 

And I say, "What? Whatever."

 

And he replies, "Those nights in the tent, they were important. You, alone, it’s not nothing. It's so important." And he says, "I feel a kinship with you. I feel connected to you. What we said to each other, it means something. Hermione. It means something."

 

 

I feel the truth, in that. There is truth, there.

 

And I am crying again. I feel adrift, bereft, hollow. We talk about other things. Ron, the little pocket of being unfulfilled, the 5%; the way he feels like his is actually 25% or maybe even more. We compare the size of our pockets. We talk.

And at some point, he says to me, honestly, and directly,

 

"You would not want to lose what you have."

 

 

And I nod.

 

I stare at the ground. I can't look at his eyes, he hasn't turned away once, he hasn't stopped watching me, just looking at me with the most intense expression, he's invested, and I know it deep inside that it hurts him to see me crying, but I can't really stop, either.

 

He says, "You're my friend. I don't want to wreck it. And Ron, too, he's my friend." And he looks at me, and in the silence, quietly, asks, "You must know that is why I have to move past all that. Why I can’t stay close." And he looks down, it's the first moment he’s stopped looking at me, so I am worried about this, and in this moment, which maybe is insane, but whatever, in this moment, I think perhaps it is the truest truth he's been able to say to my face. I am so sad, so very sad.

 

And all I can say is, "I will miss you."

 

And he says, so quiet it's nearly a whisper, "...Same."

Things get said, and my emotions quiet. And then we wind down. The rain still comes down. We laugh a bit, make a few jokes, and then finally gather ourselves together. I apologize again, because I know how much he dislikes emotion.

And then he holds his arms open silently, looking at me, his eyes are suddenly so dark and haunting, his gaze so direct, it's so intense I can't stop. And I can't stop, I can't. So I crush myself into his arms, feeling my hair and face press into his chest and shoulder, with my full body pressing against his body. He doesn't pull away or hold back, and he wraps his arms over mine, and he hugs me so tightly that I nearly start to cry again, and I'm shaking with barely held back tears, with my face pressed into his sweater, and I feel my body making little hiccups, and I know that he can't see my face, but I know he can feel my body shaking. And he just hugs me tighter, and his hands are against my back, and my arms, and his hands are also on my hair, and now I can feel him caressing my hair back from my face. My tears are still here, but they are few this time, and I have my arms wrapped around his middle and I am just moving my hands, over his back, over his back, feeling him there: he's so close to me, and yet, too fucking disastrously far away from me, at the same moment. I realize something, as it becomes time for us to separate, and as he pulls back just a slight amount: I realize that I want to kiss him, and in that moment, I realize that I will. We pull apart, we watch each other's faces. I place both my hands on his cheeks, and pull him in, and gently, just gently, barely touching him with my lips, I kiss his right cheek, holding his face with my fingertips. And when I pull away, I am suddenly so very fucking afraid to see his expression, so I can't look hard at his eyes, but I still register a glimpse of his shock and sadness, there. And it hurts, but it feels good, all at once. And I turn away, going to the balcony edge again, saying, "I need a moment, I'll be in after you." And he goes in, and I wait 3 beats, and then follow him back inside.

The party still goes on. It's like nobody noticed that my life has changed forever, on that fucking balcony. It's like nothing even happened. And for the rest of the night, I'm laughing, having fun. Harry and I barely talk again through the rest of the night, as I try to laugh and play and be silly with Ron and Luna and our friends, and I'm just trying to be alive, and okay, and alive.

\----

And today, I'm alive. I'm still alive.

\-----

And I never, not once, said the word, "love."

 

\---


End file.
